The Night Seoul Burned: Park Chung-hee's Industrial Gamble

While previous episodes have covered the architectural resilience of Hanyangdoseong and the steel production of POSCO, this episode zooms in on the specific political and economic mechanisms that drove South Korea’s rapid industrialization under Park Chung-hee. We examine the heavy-handed state intervention of the 1960s and 70s, focusing on the creation of the Economic Planning Board and the controversial Yushin Constitution. The narrative explores how Park utilized the KCIA to suppress dissent while simultaneously pushing the Gyeongbu Expressway and the Chaebol system forward. Listeners will hear about the human cost of the Saemaul Undong movement, the role of Hyundai in building Ulsan, and the diplomatic tightrope walked during the Cold War era. This story connects the dots between the trauma of the Korean Armistice and the emergence of a global powerhouse, detailing the specific policies that turned a war-torn peninsula into an export engine.

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